There was also a birthday card in the box. I wrote a note for her, by hand of all things! Yeah, really, I write on here sometimes as much as a thousand words a day and I actually put Pen to Paper and scrawled out something for her to read.

I also tossed some random things in there because I do that sort of thing. Just a few things I thought would make her scratch her head and wonder whether I have lost my mind, because I generally have.

I’m sure it all made her smile.

The reason why I sent it early was so that it would be there roughly at her husband Mike’s birthday as well. Mike’s a great guy, and I have to say I was truly happy when they got together and built a relationship, then a marriage, then a life together.

Thanks Mike for all of that.

So Pat, nothing else is coming in the mail, but if there is any of the jam or the curds left, I suggest a little on a toasted English Muffin with some cream cheese. It’s excellent.

The trick is that you have to par-boil these beasts before you bake them normally. The parboiling will give the crust that you’re looking for.

To a large pot of water add 4 to 6 cups of water. For each cup of water, add 1 tablespoon of baking soda for pretzels or 1 tablespoon of molasses for bagels.

Bring the pot of water to a boil. The water will boil quicker than usual and the additives will make quite a bit of foam on top that may not go away right off. So you will want to turn down the heat and stir until this stuff that looks like sea foam gets dispersed, mostly.

Here’s the problem with these pretzel rolls. If you want a “roll” texture, you want a nice fluffy well risen roll of dough. Start with 80 grams of dough, about 2 3/4 ounces. Allow it to rise fully – about two hours at a “normal room temperature”.

When you go to parboil your dough ball, it may deflate or fall. Boil each dough ball for 30 seconds per side, then remove it and place it on your cookie sheet to bake.

How do you make sure you get a nice fluffy dough ball into the pot of boiling water?

I have a lot of trouble with this one. The dough will stick to your cookie sheet since it has risen and pushed some of the corn meal out of the way. It will stick to baking parchment. It will stick to a silpat silicone sheet. If you flour the sheet, it will stick. If you cornmeal the sheet it will stick. If you try to remove the dough ball with a spatula, it will stick. It will stick to your fingers when you go to pull them up and it will stick to your fingers when you drop them into the boiling water.

Don’t burn your fingers. You have been warned.

I simply have not found a way to reliably get the dough that has fully risen until it is about the size of a medium orange or a baseball into that water without it at least partially falling.

If you look closely, really closely, at that picture, you’ll notice that the rolls are all flattened somewhat.

The traditional bagel and soft pretzels you are used to eating are not “fully risen”, and I think it is a plot! Since you have to remove them from the sheet, you want to have them deflate as little as possible. Solution? Don’t let them rise as much so the gluten hasn’t stretched out. Partially risen dough will hold together better.

So you get a chewier baked good as a result by not allowing it to rise quite as much. It will be denser as a result.

These do taste good whether risen or not. In fact they’re excellent with ham, sharp cheese, and a strong mustard, or just with cream cheese and cherry jelly.

They’re just not “fluffy”.

I’ll work on that and let you know. I may just have to accept defeat and not have really fluffy pretzel rolls.

But next time, I’ll try both flour and corn meal and really dust the daylights out of that cookie sheet!

I won’t tell them how old you are, and I haven’t used a picture here. After all you haven’t sent me one to post here. I could have grabbed one from Facebook but it’s for the best. I don’t use my own here after all!

I’m sure Mike’s going to take you out for dinner at some point during the weekend. I bet there’s going to be one of those cakes that you like to make that’s drizzled with caramel or chocolate squiggles of sugary goodness.

Keep Jonathan out of the icing until you’ve finished with decorating the cake.

I’ll make something over the weekend here, promise! I haven’t sent any baked goods up there yet this year. I’m working on some recipes for the holiday season. The old standbys are good at any rate, you’ve said how much you like them.

The card’s in the mail, went out on Tuesday. If it isn’t there today, my guess is Saturday or Monday.

My sister sent this to me the other day. I wonder if she’s trying to tell me that we’re getting older… NAAAAH!

Growing up without a cell phone

If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning…. Uphill… Barefoot… BOTH ways…yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!

But now that I’m over the ripe old age of forty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3’s or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We’d play our favorite tape and “eject” it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that’s how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that’s it!

7) There weren’t any freakin’ cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn’t make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your “friends”. OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror… not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there’s TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent… you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn’t have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what’s the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards.

12) And we didn’t have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play… all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside… you were doing chores!

And car seats – oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the “safety arm” across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling “shot gun” in the first place!

See! That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Usually when I post humor, it’s from my friend Velma up in Philadelphia. Today instead of being an “Open Letter To My Sister”, this posting turns my blog into an “Open Letter From My Sister”.

Pat’s responsible for this posting. Thanks, Pat!

(I like WAITT and ROFLCGU personally)

In case you want to *try* to GU2SPD (Get Up To SPeeD)….especially with the rise of social media, more and more of us ‘senior citizens’ are texting and tweeting. Here is a guide to some of the codes they use in communicating with peers:~~~~~~~~~~ATD: At The Doctor’sBTW: Bring The WheelchairBYOT: Bring Your Own TeethCBM: Covered By MedicareCUATSC: See You At The Senior CenterDWI: Driving While IncontinentFWB: Friend With Beta BlockersFWIW: Forgot Where I WasFYI: Found Your InsulinGGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!GHA: Got Heartburn Again

HGBM: Had Good Bowel MovementIMHO: Is My Hearing-Aid On?LMDO: Laughing My Dentures OutLOL: Living On LipitorLWO: Lawrence Welk’s On